Ted Cruz: U.S. Is One Liberal Justice Away from End of Gun Rights

On October 23, Senator and Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz observed that the U.S. is one liberal Supreme Court justice away from going after the individual right to keep and bear arms with the intent of hampering, if not abolishing, the exercise of that right.

Cruz was speaking at a campaign event in Iowa when he addressed the precarious position in which our gun rights sit.

According to the Des Moines Register, Cruz said, “One more liberal justice and our right to keep and bear arms [will be] taken away from us by an activist court.”

To be clear, Cruz is not saying the court has the ability to destroy our God-given right to keep and bear arms but is sounding the clarion call that the court will certainly remove the protections our gun rights currently enjoy if given the chance. On April 9, Breitbart News had the opportunity to talk to Cruz about Second Amendment rights, and he was crystal clear regarding the origin of gun rights and the important role they serve in defending freedom:

America was founded on a revolutionary concept. Namely, that our rights don’t come from government, they come from God Almighty. The natural rights of man include life, liberty, and property. Each of those rights is dependent upon being able to preserve the safety and security of your own family. In fact, the very first Congress not only acted to protect our Second Amendment rights but mandated the militia act; that adult free men must own a musket.

During that April interview, Cruz warned that our right to keep and bear arms was already under attack by the leftists who are currently in office. He highlighted the way President Obama and others seized on a criminal attack carried out by one person—Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook Elementary—and used that attack as a springboard for fettering the exercise of gun rights for everyone.

When Cruz spoke to the topic again on Friday in Iowa, his message was that electing another administration that abhors the Second Amendment as Obama does will all but guarantee another liberal justice on the Supreme Court. That, in turn, will guarantee decisions aimed at hampering or abolishing the exercise of Second Amendment rights.

Breitbart News previously reported that the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times have been working to cast doubt on the pro-gun decisions in District of Columbia v Heller (2008) and McDonald v Chicago (2010) in hopes of keeping the cases in the forefront so a Supreme Court with different justices might reverse or at least augment the decisions.